Gambling figures prominently in this story, but this isn’t a story about gambling. It’s a story about an administration misusing its power to benefit its friends. It’s a story about the corrupt purchase of our government.
For half a century, Democratic and Republican administrations have interpreted the Wire Act, passed in 1961, as prohibiting the sale of lottery tickets by phone or wire, and in more recent years over the Internet. That changed on Christmas 2011, when the Obama/Holder Department of Justice reinterpreted the Wire Act. The DOJ ruled that the Wire Act allows lotteries to sell tickets online. The DOJ did not consult Congress. It held no hearings and did not seek comment from the small businesses that currently sell lottery tickets and will be impacted by the reinterpretation. Justice just changed the law by decree on a holiday, when no one was paying attention, overturning decades of precedent.
DOJ’s reinterpretation opens up the floodgates for states and now foreign lottery operators to sell tickets to anyone with a credit card and a connection to the Internet. It will make it more difficult for states to police lotteries and keep them fair and clean. Well, as fair and clean as a hidden tax on people who failed at math and do not understand gambling odds can be. The reinterpretation does something else, too: It benefits President Obama’s donors and two key states.
Among those beneficiaries are Scientific Games and GTech. Shares of both companies jumped dramatically on the news of the Justice Department’s reinterpretation. According to Shay Sayre and Cynthia King’s book Entertainment and Society: Influences, Impacts and Innovations, GTech is a wholly owned subsidiary of Lottomatic, a foreign company that holds the license for Italy’s national lottery. GTech and Lottomatic together have captured 63 percent of the world’s lottery business. In the book, Sayre and King write that GTech’s history is riddled with controversy, including an attempt to bribe British billionaire Richard Branson. These are .0001 percenters at the heart of this story.
GTech and Scientific Games both have strong connections to the Democratic Party, according to Federal Election Commission records. Scientific Games’ chairman is Lorne Weil. According to the FEC, Weil has given more than $22,500 to political campaigns and committees since 2008, with over 80% of that sum going to Democrats. Jaymin Patel is president and CEO of GTech. Patel has donated $9,300 since 2008, with over 90% of his generosity going toward Democrats.
So we have two companies whose leaders donate heavily to the Democrats, benefiting from a Democratic administration’s reinterpretation of the Wire Act, and one of those two companies has a history of corruption. But the ultimate beneficiaries of lottery systems are state budgets, right?
Two states seem to have gotten the jump on the other 48. They just happen to be Illinois, home state of President Obama, and Delaware, home state of Vice President Joe Biden. How did that happen? Illinois and New York, two states addicted to government spending and apparently incapable of living within their means, specifically asked for the Wire Act’s reinterpretation in 2011. And they got it. Delaware was poised to get in on the action early.
From a distance, the entire reinterpretation appears to be an insider deal: CEOs buy access with their donations, and states buy access with their politics and proximity to the administration. That the convenient reinterpretation of a fifty year old law coincides with so many hostile actions the Obama administration has taken against Republican states — suing Arizona for enforcing its border, smashing Texas’ energy industry via the EPA’s MACT rule and cross-border pollution rule — is too obvious to ignore. This administration is corrupting the rule of law, and in the case of the Wire Act, using the very department that is supposed to be the impartial guardian of our laws to do it.
“This administration is corrupting the rule of law, and in the case of the Wire Act, using the very department that is supposed to be the impartial guardian of our laws to do it.”
This happens so often with this administration, I should be numb to it by now, but it still leaves me shaking my head. The corruption-of-purpose in the DoJ is just appalling.
“Well, as fair and clean as a hidden tax on people who failed at math and do not understand gambling odds can be.”
A tax is the compulsory taking of money or goods from people by the government. No one is compelled to buy a lottery ticket (Well, maybe in states 51-57), therefore lotteries are not a tax, hidden or otherwise. They’re more like user fees, such as for state parks, where the choice is left wholly to the individual.
Excellent as usual, Mr. Preston, well done. The sad part is that besides possibly losing an election, these utterly contemptuous felons – and that is exactly what they are – will never see any ill effects of their constitution shredding, family disintegrating, race hate hustling, murderous (Agent Terry), SCOTUS threatening actions. The MSM is just as culpable in my book as this president and his lapdog. Michael Ledeen penned an article as to how this administration was held in contempt by foreign governments; I have nothing but contempt for the most un-American administration in our nation’s History. All that is required for tyranny to succeed is for good men to stand by and do nothing……are there ANY DEMOCRATS left in America that have not sold out to the America-hating radicals in their own midst? Are there ANY REPUBLICANS with the cahones to stand up, be MEN, and put these bastards in prison where they belong? Sadly, I believe the answer to both questions is……zero. God bless you for carrying the torch of truth and freedom, Mr. Preston.
Under Eric “The Great Cracker Killer” Holder, the DO”J” has become a sad travesty which makes the Mexican justice system look positively Solomonian by comparison.
“The Great Cracker Killer”…..good one! Do you mind if I use it?
I’ve heard it said that the lottery is really a “tax on the poor,” simply because mostly poor people buy the tickets and they are the ones who can ill afford to lose their hard-earned cash. Yet they keep buying the tickets in fond hopes of winning millions, even though the odds are stacked so high against them. So, by encouraging people to play the lottery, Obama and Holder are actually hurting the very people they claim to be wanting to help, the poor in this country. I wonder if anybody would ever mention that to them at a press conference? Sure. I’d give that about the same odds of happening as winning the lottery.
Sorry. I like the lottery because it is an entirely voluntary tax on gullibility and stupidity. Where possible, these thinks SHOULD be taxed.
I’m sorry. You see I am one of the poor people who hopes to win it big and if I don’t then I would hope that my few dollars go towards education as it was originally intended. (in NY ) I always have thought that if I spend money for something (edu.) then it can’t be ALL bad.
JoeEnglish
I’m sorry. You see I am one of the poor people who hopes to win it big and if I don’t then I would hope that my few dollars go towards education as it was originally intended. (in NY ) I always have thought that if I spend money for something (edu.) then it can’t be ALL bad.
Yes it can because it is first going to your local government to do whatever they do with it and eventually to PUBLIC EDUCATION which is basically liberal indoctrination for developing more leeches on society taking more and more and contributing nothing!
Very weak. If I were of the conspiratorial mindset the article is
appealing to, I’d wonder about the author’s motives rather than the
administration’s. What does it amount to? An example of the current
administration actually deregulating an industry, freeing trade,
undoing a decision made long ago by faceless unelected bureaucrats
for considerations we have no reason to believe were any purer than
those that led to its reversal. In fact this article reads like a
spoof of the many such articles one can read during Republican
administrations, whenever they have the balls to reverse some
oppressive regulatory decision made during previous administrations.
This decision ought to be applauded by anyone who believes in free
trade. The police will find it harder to stick their noses in and
“keep it clean”? Good. That’s what the GOP is supposed to be about.
Small businesses are affected? Boo hoo. The Wire Act wasn’t passed
to benefit them in the first place, so if they’ve been unjustly
profiting from it for all this time they should shut up and hope no
one noticed. Or *was* it a protectionist measure all this time? If
so, a long-ago act of corruption is now finally exposed.
And I’m profoundly unimpressed at a multi-millionaire donating ~$2300
a year to politicians, even if almost all of it goes to Democrats.
I’m sure their souls are much more expensive than that. As that
Colombian woman explained so eloquently, they’re $1000 escorts, not
$50 streetwalkers.
Trees, meet forest.
Milhouse, the Wire Act was voted on and passed by Congress in 1961, not invented out of whole cloth by “faceless unelected bureaucrats”. The point of the article is do we really want laws that have been duly enacted by Congress to be overturned for political reasons by a secretive Executive Order? It’s fine to argue about the effectiveness or need for particular a law, but you should be very worried about an administration that displays utter contempt for the law-making process of our representative republic and circumvents that process for their own purpose.
Obama has blatantly stated his intent to “act when Congress won’t” and has expressed admiration for the way government works in Communist China. Any rational American should take this as a warning that our Constitutional Republic is in grave danger from this arrogant and lawless administration.
The Wire Act was passed by Congress. The interpretation that it applies to the internet was made by faceless unelected bureaucrats just like the ones that have now reversed it. There’s no reason why the first interpretation is more likely than the second to be correct. And as believers in free markets we should have protested the first interpretation, and we should applaud the second one. The arguments Preston makes against it are all either protectionist or nanny-statist.
You can always tell a lying liberal by the length of the crap they just ”spray and pray” to see what sticks to feeble brains.
Say what??? Are you hallucinating or just illiterate?
“Small businesses are affected? Boo hoo. The Wire Act wasn’t passed
to benefit them in the first place, so if they’ve been unjustly
profiting from it for all this time they should shut up and hope no
one noticed.” I think it is more to the point that many businesses planned, designed and started their businesses under a particular set of rules, and now they are suddenly being changed. Any change that throws legitimate businessmen out of their livelihoods should be undertaken with due process
Don’t lose track of the jist of this article: the corrupt and total criminal activites of this sitting president and his administration.
This is just one more example of his underhanded and unconstitutional activity that has baen obama’s agenda. His change for America! Is it working for you…think and choose wisely, every day we are losing more of our country to his agenda.
I just do NOT understand why there isn’t ever anything done to stop all these illegal/unconstitutional things they do! Sue them, indict them, investigate them WITH severe consequences/punishment, fire them, STOP THEM! Why are they always just ALLOWED to continuously do these illegal things? The list of illegal and unconstitutional things they have done and do is mind boggling! But the fact they are not challenged and stopped is the ultimate mind boggle-er! Every day there is more and more and more and no one does a thing about it! And they become more brazen each day! I just can’t wrap my head around it anymore!
The most
transparentcorruptcriminal administration in history.10 USC 502:
“I, XXXXXXXXXX, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.”
(bolding added)
I took that oath in 1975; no one has ever released me from it.
Rusty Bill
former TSgt (E-6), USAF/MsANG/TxANG
Bill, I ask this as I am not x military. Who can take this oath? Can I, an educated, disabled, patriot officially take it ? Does anyone know?
I would like to find out as I not only will, but MUST, act soon or MY country will soon fall if obumble and the other commies win the election. I vow that no federal agent will take any of my friends into custody under obumble and holders totally criminal enterprise aka executive dept of the US. obumble and holder are definitely not of the executive type, they’re more like worms eating a ripe apple. They need some pesticide in the form of a Mexican extra-diction at the least or a firing squad at most.
The oath I quoted is the one taken by everyone who enlists in the United States military. It is, in fact, specified in law – Title 10 United States Code Section 502.
I’m not sure civilians can “take” the oath. On the other hand, an oath is more a matter of honor and principle than a physical action. If you believe in the intent of the Oath of Enlistment – and are willing to assume the responsibilities implied by it – I don’t think any current or prior service member would hold your lack of active military service against you. At least, not too much
.
This seems like an appropriate time to post the URL for tracking campaign contributions from energy corporations: http://dirtyenergymoney.org/view.php?searchvalue=78701&com=&can=&zip=78701&search=1&type=search#view=connections
This is so depressing. Government in the US is becoming as corrupt as it has been in the UK and has become in Australia. Perhaps, Canada (and obviously not Quebec) is the only place where honesty pays off now. Oh, maybe Iceland, the Channel Islands, Bermuda and Costa Rica. After that, you just take your chances – and the taxman takes his slice, whether you like it or not (and changing the government changes nothing)
Nice piece, Bryan. Seems to be an ever-present pattern with this administration.